-The Times of India The government is all set to crack the whip on India's shameful pharma-doctor nexus. The National Development Council (NDC), led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will meet on December 27 to discuss bringing a legislation requiring drug companies to mandatorily disclose payments made to doctors for research, consulting, lectures, travel and entertainment. Doctors involved in ghost writing to promote pharma products will also be disqualified. The official NDC document...

-The Hindu Nationwide survey will be conducted to introduce a suitable shelter programme The government proposes to create an enabling environment for the social empowerment of the de-notified tribes so that they could utilise reservation benefits in education and employment. A nation-wide survey of de-notified tribes’ settlements is to be conducted to form the basis for introducing a suitable shelter programme for them. They could be entitled to free or subsidised housing under...

-The Hindu Unperturbed by protests against its proposed nuclear power plant in Jaitapur, Maharashtra, the French civil nuclear energy major Areva is now in the closing stages of striking an “early works agreement” with Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited. This agreement, which is actually a series of studies to ensure that the reactor is in conformity with local conditions, is likely to take nine months. “Areva’s discussions with NPCIL are on....

-The Times of India LUCKNOW: In response to a query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the the Central Information Commission (CIC), New Delhi, denied it had any 'frivolous or personal-in-nature' applications available in the records. This is against statement of chief information commissioner (CIC) Satyanand Mishra at a Seminar on RTI, organized in the city recently, in which he said, people had not understood the basics of the RTI...

-The Hindu The retail vegetable sellers have now started quoting the prices of almost all items in pao or 250 grammes. The concept of darjan or dozen has almost been replaced by the kilogramme for the humblest of fruits like bananas and oranges. But this means little to the common household which now literally thinks twice before buying any grocery item. A common refrain heard often from politicians is that prices are...